Home Furniture, Plumbing, Heating, & Electrical

Preparing Your Home for Summer Vacation

When you go away for vacation in the winter, you need to think critically about a number of things that will prevent your home from suffering costly damage in your absence, most notably broken pipes that can flood your space and create water damage. However, when you go on vacation in the summer, there are still things you should do to save money, protect your home, and ensure that you’re being as efficient as possible. Here are some tips from our HVAC and plumbing company in Kankakee for how to prepare your home for your summer vacation.

1. Turn off your air conditioning.

Unlike in the winter, when you’ll want to make sure that your heat is left on (at least to a reasonable temperature), you can turn your air conditioning completely off when you leave home for vacation in the summer. Why pay money and put extra wear and tear on your air conditioning unit to cool your house when no one is using it?

Exceptions:

If it is very humid, your home’s flooring could suffer warping and damage while you’re gone, especially if it has never been left in hot, humid conditions before. If you’ve never experimented with what happens when you turn your air conditioner off, you might be in for a surprise the first time you do so for an extended period of time.

If you will have someone house sitting while you’re away, it may be a welcome courtesy to them to have the A/C left on.

If you have delicate plants, birds, or other pets who will be staying in your home in your absence, think about how the summer temperatures will affect them.

2. Make sure that your lawn irrigation is set on an automatic schedule.

The last thing you want to happen is to leave for two weeks in the hottest dog days of summer and come back to your home to find that all the grass is dead. Not every home in the Kankakee area has an automatic irrigation system, but if you do have one, it’s the perfect time to take advantage of its convenience.

3. Shut off your water at the main water valve.

This is optional, but it can prevent you from paying unnecessarily for dripping faucets, toilets that run periodically, and any other water leaks. If you do decide to take this step, ensure that your irrigation will still work (most homes have a separate shutoff for lawn sprinklers than for inside the home). Take into consideration the time you will be away (the longer you will be away, the more proactive you should be about shutting off your water) and whether or not anyone will be coming over to your home to check on things or even stay overnight. If you need help locating your water shutoff valve, it’s an important thing to know. Feel free to call our helpful plumbers and we will not only show you that, we’ll be happy to give you an estimate for fixing that dripping faucet or leaky toilet.